"Empty pieces of paper" (Continuing on "Barefoot Children")

....continuing on barefoot Children

Barefoot children

You lost your words and your piece of paper,
you barefoot children in life.
So you sit back on the dealer's stairs
crying in total despair

What was that word - was it long or short,
was it well or badly written?
Think hard now - before we drive you away,
you barefoot children in life. (Nils Ferlin from ” Barfotabarn”-33)

What did I meant with the metaphor ”empty pieces of paper” in my earlier article about these Barefoot children?


It was about 70 years ago, that poem was written Today, the young people’s "pieces of paper" are more empty than ever, and little or nothing, they have on their feet. It is only a matter of time before a whole generation will be removed from the skilled work and higher education staircase.

We must think now. What should be on their lips or in their backpacks? What travel costs should be carefully packed down for later need in life and why is the bag empty and the patch blank ? Not that the young have forgotten, but because we deliberately refused to fill it with meaningful words in the same way we have not provided them with something nutritious to carry along in their luggage.

Knowledge would have been a good trip cost for all and not like now just for an elite.

The Word should now at two thousand century belong to all categories of people not only an intellectual upper class. Nobody should have to bear with the blank CV or stretch in the grade or go with broken shoes, to use a metaphor.of the Swedish singer Cornelius

But today it is worse than that, we have a whole generation "barefoot children, young people and then adults who never get entrance to our society. They lack that "piece of paper" which should have been the passport to higher education, skilled jobs and political commitment.

They also lack the words to dress their vulnerability They are, at the same time, because of the society we have created in west also dried out of spirituality, positive role models and adult contacts.
They are stuck in the ”democracy” trap, which we set up, without access to hope. Here, firmly squeezed and without self-esteem and self, begins second thoughts and values to take shape. Do I get no respect and I will force others to have respect for me at least be frightened . If no one sees me, I shall make them see and that at any price, often so by becoming an notorious

The terror and fear I feel others will then experience through me.. Internal images emerging from children and young people's powerlessness and self-denial will then turn into destructive acts and conduct. So a spiral of violence is built up assisted by us the adults through the society we all helped to create. These are, to borrow Nils Ferlin image, the "barefoot children." of today
Children, youth and later adults who face life with lost or completely blank "piece of paper". Or rather it is we who robed them on the "words", by the personal responsibility we all bear, but not are taking.

Now it is high time to put social responsibility under scrutiny and the question is, What went wrong in our western society and Why?